


Where All Past Years Are

by Atalan



Category: Lord Peter Wimsey - Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-24
Updated: 2007-12-24
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:24:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atalan/pseuds/Atalan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Charles is not an imaginative man." A set of musings upon forgiveness. Spoilers for most of the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where All Past Years Are

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a treat, a bit of character study, because I do sometimes wonder about Charles and Peter's relationship post-Strong Poison. Thanks to calliope85 for last-minute beta.
> 
> Written for Irmelin

 

 

Charles is not an imaginative man. That is not to say he has no imagination: he is easily able to picture a crime scene as it must have been in the moment of the act, to paint his own future bright before him, and to delve into a work of literature with appreciation of more than the mechanics of the text.

But he is not like Peter, caught up from second to second in such flights of fancy that his feet scarce seem to touch the ground. He does not lie awake in agony at nights, contemplating those whom he has sent to the noose, questioning his motives and his judgement. That is not to say he is untroubled by conscience: he has known the darkness of self-doubt and has shared, with Peter, silent and troubled vigils of mind as they tried, together, to find a solution that does not end with death and damnation for those undeserving. He has known fury at his own impotence and fear of his own failure; he has known grief and has felt the weight of guilt more times than he cares to remember. Yet all things pass, and when it is done, for good or ill, while Peter tosses and turns, Charles sleeps soundly in the knowledge that there can be no changing what is no more in his hands.

So it is strange, for him, to find a question preying on his mind that cannot be readily answered. It occurs to him one Christmas at Talboys, as the children shriek and run, as Harriet and Mary talk with animation - and he had never quite expected that, somehow, the fellowship they have with one another - and as Peter, thinking himself unwatched, watches his wife with a look so unguarded it almost shames Charles to behold it.

He has had some years now to come to know Harriet himself, and to see what it is that Peter saw all that time ago - in a moment, across a court room, with that rare and passionate insight that is his gift. She is not the woman he himself could love - not as a wife, at least, he thinks as he glances at dear Mary - but she is more than simply 'Peter's Wife', has become, he hopes, as much a friend of his as Peter himself. He sees in her some of what has always drawn him to Peter, and thinks that those who insist that lovers seek their opposites are fools, for it is the commonality between the two of them that has made their bond so strong.

When the question presents itself for his consideration, as he sips Peter's excellent port before the fire, he does not, at first, give it a breathing space, but pushes it aside in surprise and unease. Yet Charles is not an imaginative man, and cannot construct an elaborate facade to conceal from himself the fact that the question has been asked. It remains, waiting for him, all through that bright and lovely evening, as he deals with a small tantrum (Peter, for all his unexpected fatherly nature, does not do well with tears and screams, though Harriet takes to it without a ruffled feather), as the four of them converse in low tones of this and that once the children are asleep, and as he climbs the stairs, his wife's hand in his, with a faint smile for wind under the eaves that cannot reach them.

So it is that, lying awake, Charles finds the question waiting for him. Has Harriet forgiven him for bringing her to the dock on a charge of murder? He has made his apologies, formally, of course, but that was before he knew her. He remembers her white face in the box, and remembers his own certainty, at the time, that he had arrested the right woman.

He wishes, for a moment, that he could recall some moment of doubt, before the trial when Peter took the matter from his hands, but he knows, with a quiet assurance that relieves his conscience, that he acted as he truly believed to be best. Yet that very assurance is what unnerves him now, as he wonders if he has erred at other times, if he has wronged an innocent and never even known.

He thinks of Harriet, and he realises that the answer to that question is not so troubling: Harriet _is_ imaginative, like Peter, but unlike Peter, Charles knows she does not dwell overmuch on that which is beyond her reach. She understood even then why she stood accused, and saw no reason for anyone to take her part, and if she has ever thought of it in such terms - which Charles suspects she has not - he has no doubt she has forgiven.

It is the corollary that haunts him, the other half of the question that keeps him awake long into the night. It is Peter's face, watching his wife with what might be called worship by those devout, or devotion by those who serve, that disturbs his mind and wards off sleep. He thinks of Peter rushing hither and yon with increasing desperation, unheard-of anguish, seeking a miracle that Charles himself had not thought possible. Yet Peter had his miracle, saved her from disgrace and from the rope - and God knows that it has proved enough of a burden on both of them.

Charles thinks of the years Peter spent waiting, hoping, hurting, for her; he thinks of the contentment on Harriet's face and the children by the fire; and Charles, who never dwells on 'ifs' and 'maybes', wonders if Peter will ever, ever forgive him.

 


End file.
